Review - The Golden Lady by Roberta CM DeCaprio

Loving someone is hard…especially if they're supposed to be your enemy!

Willow Creek, Arizona saw its share of Indian attacks. Amanda Gregory witnessed the sorrow first hand with her father's murder. Refusing Reverend Joshua Holmes' proposal, Amanda decides to stay on her farm and run it alone. When she saves Proud Eagle, a wounded Apache warrior, he wins her heart, calling her his golden lady, and Amanda's hatred of Indians begins to change. The night the Chiricahuas attack Amanda's farm, Proud Eagle helps her to escape, taking her back to his tribe to become his wife. But their love is forbidden, and Amanda finds herself fighting the biggest battle of her life . . . the right to love her enemy.

Existence in the small town of Willow Creek, Arizona, is difficult for the scattering of European settlers who are eking out a living in an often harsh environment, but their lives are made harder still when hostile Chiricahua Apaches attack them, burning their farms and murdering entire families.

When Amanda is orphaned after her father is slain, the Reverend Joshua Holmes offers her his protection in the form of a marriage proposal, which she refuses. Joshua is more of an older brother to her and she returns to the family farm, adamant that she will prevail.

But when wounded Proud Eagle collapses near her home, she surprises herself by healing a man belonging to a people who may well have murdered her father and, despite her internal conflict she can’t help but deny that this wounded Apache man is rather attractive…

The Golden Lady is a very touching, sweet romance about Amanda’s bourgeoning relationship with Proud Eagle, and the trials they face in order to be together. Not only do they belong to two totally different cultures but face considerable resistance from assorted quarters because of these differences. DeCaprio also communicates some of the horrors of the colonial past, touching on the oppression the Apaches faced at the hands of the white settlers.

DeCaprio tells a fair tale, although at times I felt that more attention could have been given to the setting and the secondary characters, which sometimes came across a little as cardboard cut-outs from time to time. It may just be a personal opinion of mine because I don’t like typical good vs. evil character realizations, so I felt the author’s representation of the antagonists could have used some fleshing out for them to become well-rounded.

Overall, although there were a few instances of too-convenient co-incidences, I enjoyed stepping into DeCaprio’s milieu to explore a world I know very little of, and I can appreciate that she has gone to great pains to ensure that her story is well-researched and certainly filled with enough tension in places for me to keep wanting to know what happens next.